Abstract:

In order to deliver cyberinfrastructure to the general scientific and biomedical research
community, transparent access and ease of use are of critical importance. Applications in systematic
modeling of biological processes across scales of time and length demand more and more
sophisticated algorithms and larger and longer simulations. The increased level of sophistication
requires that cyberinfrastructure developers either work closely with the applications scientists, or
develop middleware that flattens the learning curve for these scientists to use the grid willingly and
transparently. Many life sciences researchers prefer to run applications in the grid environment
without modifications, and without knowledge of specific computational resources being utilized.
Here we report the latest advances in the use of Gfarm-FUSE (Grid Data Farm-Filesystem in
UserSpaceE) as a computational data grid, with CSF4 (Community Scheduler Framework 4) as the
metascheduler, through a GridSphere portal based environment, termed My WorkSphere. We describe
the design and performance of this transparent grid computing environment using bioinformatics and
computational biology applications as examples. All the components developed or utilized are open
source and available freely.

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International Workshop on Grid Computing Environments--Open Access (2006)The purpose of this Workshop is to bring together the community to discuss and foster the exchange of ideas for the development of tools, methodologies and frameworks to build Grid computing environments. Last year’s conference at SC05 focussed on tools for Grid Portals. This years conference will broaden the discussion to also include efforts of other tools that make the development and use of Grids more easily accessible from the desktop.